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Journal of Personality Disorders, 2(4). 350-359 1988
1988 The Guilford Press
In this paper we present a general approach to the psychodynamic descrip
tion and understanding of the personality disorders. Such a conceptualiza
tion is based upon a broad point of view that embraces several significant
constructs common to the varied group of clinicians and theorists (Freud ian, neo-Freudian, Kleinian, interpersonal, and others) who usually are
grouped together under the rubric ofpsychoanalysis. Although each of the
varied psychoanalytic positions differs from the others to some degree,
these schools of thought share an adherence to a group of common assump
tions about human behavior, personality, and psychopathology, and it is
these common assumptions that form the underpinning for a comprehen
sive psychodynamic understanding of the personality disorders. Foremost among these assumptions is a belief in the existence of unconscious mental processes that exert significant motivational influence upon behavior, and that shape outside of the individual's awareness his or her perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal experiences. Closely linked to this
principle are the constructs of psychic determinism, overdetermination, and the multiple function of behavior. The principle of psychic determinism posits that behavior is elicited not only by the current stimulus situation but, to a great extent, also by mental events that are residues of past expe
riences and that often are unconscious. The construct of overdetermination
expands this point of view to include the finding that any thought, emotion,
or action may have several or many preceding causal factors, and the prin
ciple of multiple function holds that an observed behavior can be under
stood fully only when the balance among its multiple determinants is as
sessed. All of the constructs described here emphasize the importance of the residues of past experience in the study of current behavior, leading to the
final shared assumption of the psychodynamic approach: the belief in the necessity for developmental understanding of an individual's current func tion, with particular emphasis on the importance of infantile and childhood experiences as the building blocks of later personality development.
A psychodynamically informed study of personality disorder utilizes these
principles in a three-tiered approach to diagnosis and treatment. The first,
From the Gordon F. Demer Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University
(G.S.); and the Ferkauf...